Broken Burning Doves
by Chrissy Renee Pinto
Summary: Michael visits Gretchen in prison and interrogates her.Gretchen/Michael forever! Finished, Those who love it will want to read it!
1. Chapter 1

**DEDICATED TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HELPED ME RECEIVE 10 REVIEWS. IT IS YOUR ENCOURAGEMENT THAT INSPIRED ME!!**

Four walls. She had always thought -No-hoped she would die in the field, in the heat of battle with the rising crescendo of gunfire as her funeral music. Instead she was once again caged within a box like room awaiting her end, counting the seconds before it would be over with. So was the fate of Gretchen Morgan. Repulsed by her parents, the academy, and the general but firstly by life.

Draped in coarse, uncomfortable clothing and forced to endure unfavourable accommodations, almost similar to her captivity in the jungle_. Irony knocking at my door!. _

A hint of a wry, twisted grin curling the corner of her lips. At least being trapped in the jungle had some advantages; the noises chased away the deafening sound of silence, a consistent tempo to measure time. You could tell what time of the day it was unlike in the solitary pit where everything merged together into one, nothing seemed discernible except your presence in the empty screeching of solitude. There were occasions when the voices of other prisoners flittered through the heavy brass door cracked with rust, age and scratch marks. There was also a faint barely distinguishable whiff of the bitter coppery tinge of blood. Anybody else would think they were hallucinating, you couldn't smell it unless your nose was attuned to it like wild animal who depended on its bloodlust to satiate its primal cravings.

Sanity claws at the walls , struggling to remain in whole plate.

Her head lolled backwards on her neck, muscles sore with strain, and stared at the singular bulb glowing brightly, dulled over with dust and grunge. White light-maybe the prison staff had a sense of humour or their choice had more to do with tormenting their prisoner in her last moments. You can see yourself a lot better in white light, than a dim bulb. Darkness was the blanket of the wicked and the sinful according to Shakespeare. Her gaze shifted to the crassly designed, murky and soiled ceiling, then the floor and returned to the surrounding walls. All betrayed the same thing, the mind is sinking into a murky swamp.

Fleetingly she thought of Tyler, her unborn child who was murdered because he would be born different. The general was happy when he found out their baby was a boy-happy wasn't a sufficient word. The creases of his face lifted and the brilliant blue of his eyes sparkled with the charm of his youth buried by the callousness of experience.

Everything happened as if in a dream-Sadly it had to end when a DNA test revealed that the boy had the supposedly homosexual gene. The general swallowed the news with red-faced indignation and obstinate refusal. He wanted a boy, not a fairy and in time convinced her that the life growing inside her wasn't worth it. Gretchen took the easy way out because no child with them as parents could ever expect a normal future. She was saving him from a lifetime of problems and rebukes no child deserved. There was the pathetic optimism that she had done the right thing but fraudulent she was if she could convince anybody that Gretchen Morgan was cut out for motherhood. The second time couldn't be helped and it saw them move further apart because "a man as busy as himself had no time for woman who insisted on procreating in mistakes". In time he commences to call on her when her expertise was required on a mission, their trysts slowly sidelined to the past and made up very little of the future. The torture was the last straw especially for someone like her who had remained dedicated and loyal bordering on subservient. He had spurned her with the insensitivity only a man of his tenacity could administer.

Don's words filtered through her conscience invoking a wry, crooked twist to her lips. Maybe the traitorous man wasn't far from the truth, certainly the men in her life were entitled to some kind of punishment. They never appreciated her or what she did for them which was more than their own wives. Gretchen quickly climbed to her feet, started circling her limited space because she couldn't ignore the cramp in her legs, from hours of seated contemplations, any longer.

_Wonderful dreams await your sleep _

_Filled with laughter and sweet things_

_Spring is eternal in your dreams_

_Toys, unicorns, kittens and candy canes_

_Jewels, princes, fruits and palaces with stables_

_There is a special fountain filled with maple syrup_

Gretchen didn't know for sure, but she imagined she would have liked to recite the verse to her daughter by her bedside, every night given the chance. Emily's cherub face bright and interested under the glow of the lamp, nestled under the Barbie covers waiting patiently for her mommy to complete the daily ritual before giving herself up to an uneventful sleep. Her sleeping beauty. Straight from a movie scene with the perfect, happy family. The verse began as a haiku but persisted to a small verse that carried the weight of a child's once cherished ideals.

"Gretchen, you have a visitor!" The guard's gruff announcement seeped through the spaces of the door, it was nondescript, a barrage of muffled voices with no faces. Or faces with monotony and dullness rolling off their fat. She barely elevated her head but thought her body was lifeless, a twinge of fright interrupted. Gretchen had had only a couple of visitors, all relentless in drilling into her the consequences of talking. Her daughter and sister were not likely to come unless they had been forced or worse-The general had nothing but cold contempt for her and even if he wanted a last goodbye, it would be by means of a bullet, the final ending to the modern tale of lady Macbeth, who paid for her treachery and her manipulation. After all the flattering speeches the woman should have been made of sterner stuff but maybe she still had the conscious that Gretchen had easily discarded.

For a fleeting moment, terror pierced her heart but it was half hearted because the aches and groans of her weakened limbs had engendered the pain to weld into her. Eyes rolled to the door, uninterestedly in anticipation of the guest of the day. It was probably another man, the girls of her life thought prudent to stay away. Shocked disbelief courted her as Michael Schofield entered in leisurely, reticent strives. The piercing light was reflected in his eyes, giving them a brilliant, stony sheen. "Hello, Gretchen!" Dropped from his lips like the slagmites of thick ice, "I'm betting you're surprised to see me!" Folding her legs against her despite the cry of protest, she lifted her head to face him squarely, a bleak resolute line balanced on her shoulders. There is something impressive about his entrance or maybe he is just larger than life taking into mind his recent actions.

Inwardly she cringed at the sticky mess that coagulated between her thighs, but if there was any glimmer of her ordeal then she wouldn't be Gretchen Morgan. Noting his stoniness, briefly she entertained idea that he was going to end her existence. Relaxing slightly, resigning herself to the inevitable because why insist on living another day when her body shrieked her weakness every minute.

"Not at all Micheal!" Retorted equably and disarming cordiality, resuming her impervious façade regardless of the chinks in her armour. "I figured that once the general was done with you-you would soon join your brother."

"I'm not working for the company!" Snapped harshly, assuming a frosty affronted air. The barest hint of a snide grin tweaked her lips, "Then for is it that I hold the pleasure of your company? I certainly hope it is not some stalker infatuation you have for me!" Michael's eyes glazed over with pure, unadulterated hatred and detestation and she had to release a heavy sigh for the events that were about to unfold. Granted he was going to start working her over because of some imagined or real slights that occurred during their entwined providence. Her skin tingled and peeled under the heat of his stare.

It slithered into her consciousness. Fear. Because no matter a carefully laid out strategy, Michael would remain the enigma and wouldn't walk the line. The woman who had made it her business to stay a step ahead of the game..Micheal made her feel that she was playing chess while he had already traced the path to her queen. There wasn't a lot reasons for him to be here unless it was a lover's trial. "Is that why you're here? Michael. Come to slay the big, bad dragon for your lady love?" Said archly and with baleful cockiness. Her voice hitched, partly due to stress and her impending damnation. Through mere slits the light of his anger flickered dourly. A shrill cry of dread rippled through her spine before her eyelashes flickered to direct her pathetic gaze to the tattered floor, which is embellished in filth and human suffering. Eventually, it had come to claim her also , wrapping her skin and adhering her to it.

When she raised them to meet his he had crossed the short distance to stare at the wall where someone had scrawled jagged marks. Maybe it had one day made sense but the remnants of the person had dissipated with time. Now anything residual chipped away at the present occupant's sanity, it was the norm of solitary. The past set the precedent for the future. You could imagine the tormented agony of those gone by. Honestly, for a second she thought Michael could read the signatures of the wall. "Where are they holding my brother?" Suddenly she heard a male voice tersely ask hoarsely. "They are not holding him anywhere-**neither **are they forcing him to do anything against his will." Smiling woodenly, displaying canines streaked red and brown. His face became drawn in a cold mask; lips pursed tight, unspeakable curses heaped her prostrated frame while his eyes regarded her with subtle violence. "Where can I find him?" The emotion is budding and tension begins to creep into the room because for a long time the atmosphere was static. "I wouldn't know!" Shrugging her shoulders vainly, spitting out the coagulated mixture of blood and saliva onto the floor. There was an almost whipped look in her eyes like a rabid, beaten down dog but then he could be mistaken or he wasn't bothered because the fiery spite and rancour still thrummed through his veins.

In his vision he saw her as company product and an abnormality deserving of no pity. "I think you do-" Then he looked directly into her eyes, cackling with some electricity. "You were 'involved' with the general-" "I don't know where you get your information from, Michael!" Interjected with a sour edge to her mocking, dry spirited tone, "But the general and me were never 'involved'-it was just sex." Giving him a full toothed vapid grin. "That is why you pulled that little stunt!" Raising his brow in that typical, shrewd, intuitive facile as if had already unearthed the contents of her mind.

'_You and I are going to spend some quality time!' Lustrous with uninhibited promise. _

"_When the exchange is over-you better run for your life!" Responded with glibness that was tilted toward scorn_

A wisp of old memory from their many confrontations, her seclusion seemed to scream louder, the sheer pressure of their predicament grinds in their bones. "I want everything you know about the general's operation!" Stressed with heated, ferocious coercion, "And you are not going to lie to me!" A snort left her lips, she couldn't help it. Despite her 'prostrating' condition, the venomous snake wasn't going to crawl on her belly. Snakes flared treacherously even if their poison had been milked. "You really had this speech planned before you walked in, didn't you?" Candidly and brazenly scathing, "You are not as convincing as your brother but he being the thug can do it better!" Shrugging her shoulder though it hurt, the tendons delicate enough to aflame the nerves.

"Don't waste your time Micheal! Once your brother is done then you can all return to your normal lives. The general only wants one thing, He is very single minded in his quest to retrieve Sylla-" However, Gretchen didn't appear to believe, working on sounding fixedly blasé. She was a demented, murderous monster who inherently couldn't or wasn't capable of anything other than anarchy.

By interrupting him, she had piqued him once, then to continue so conversationally and with added nonchalance, infuriated him. Seemingly everything that had transpired; the lives lost and the hours spent fighting was nothing more than drops of rain in a waterfall. That propelled him forward because his integrity was repressed under moulds of cynicism. Therefore, his lips thinned to a slash across his chiselled features before rigidly flexing as he recovers the photograph that had been pushed deep into his pant pocket. Time slowed to ticking seconds of self recrimination but it had to be done. Maybe one day he could recover fully. "We have Emily!" Those deadpanned syllables had a devastating effect on the woman.

She was reduced to a lowly peasant and he was Zeus. "Michael, You too!" The man was venerated as a straight arrow, a virtuous pigment of the noble human race. She was floored by this man who sauntered into her prison and threatened her daughter. "What have you done with her?" Throat parched and constrictive, wheezing her answers between her teeth. "Is she okay?" "Fine!" There is something warped about the man standing above her, like he wears the body of a known genius but his heart resembles a mechanical pump machine. For the life of her she cannot muster the strength to be explicitly hostile. "How could you?" Sad, wearisome sear into his shallow cobalt ones. His tongue licks the roof of his mouth, biting back a comment because his somewhere decency burrows under his skin. She is tired, exhausted, beaten down and trod over. Good. Should he feel sympathy? An innocent girl, sparkling blue eyes, a devious mimicry locking his gaze with something unheard of in a embittered mercenary's heart.

**What do you think? Review and you will be justly rewarded. Definitely a second part where it gets more intense and emotional. ;) Micheal/Gretchen intimate. Lots of love for my reviewers-You guys are my rock!! **


	2. Kiss to remember

Gretchen blinked, disbelieving at the cold-hardened plane of Michaels face. Surely, he didn't mean to.. Fear of the variety she had never felt before drilling into her body like obdurate needles.

"I am serious!" His tone undertaking a frigid detached air of intimidation, on noting the tiny sliver of doubt. A converted curtain fell over her face followed by fright and muted acknowledgement. '_War warped people, their ideals twisted by the sheer instinct for survival. Michael Schofield's outcome couldn't be any different_!"

The tension eases from his body as quiet supplication trickles into her demeanour. "What do you want to know" Breathing on a doleful sigh, her lids and shoulder heavy with fatigue. A fatigue of a kind that Michael would not concede to surrender to, he had yet to reach his limit, wilful was the man who had people depending on him, trusting him. Unlike her who had nothing but four walls where the bowels of misery claimed the deserving. Her throat felt it was stuffed with desiccated straw, but the emotional turmoil would not let her rest.

"Tell me everything!" The demand was dispassionately direct, expectant of the filthiest secrets of her soul. His eyes were burning with a tacit fervour, a thirst that had the benediction of sins, wrath and lust. It poured forth like a broken down dam, rivers of information that her ravaged body could no longer sustain as her vacuous, wandering eyes looked past the man, who towered above her hunched frame. Why? She could survive the torment but the threat to her daughter that is what killed her. Gretchen Morgan died and Michael was present to bear witness.

He derived some sadistic pleasure from it, he had earned the right. Every waking moment for the torture he had to bear on account of Sara's death, his failure to protect her, then the alliance that was build on the clairvoyance of betrayal. Yes, there is remarkable pleasure not meant for her to perceive so easily. No, but to feel it plainly into her heart, thumping in her veins, draining the brazen confidence that kept her thinking she was immortal.

After the last words had been forced with lips that had begun to quaver slightly, a strange emptiness twitched in her gut. It wasn't relief and, with a hint of gladness, it was not a sense of absolution. That would be inconvenient, indebted to Michael for freeing her from the chains of her own suffering conscience. Her head moved so the light caught an iridescent look in her eye and it wasn't delight just something surreal but bitterly realistic. The muscles of his body were tautly bunched in refusal, the woman did not deserve it and after his ears had been privy to such callousness and cruelty, it was not within his composure to forgive after the damage she had inflicted with her own two hands. Even now it was palpable that what was so bare in her eyes had nothing to do with penitence or regret, not for the innocents who suffered.

Impassivity would have serve him well but the little boy, who had to deal with similar grief as a cherub faced girl, spurned him to an action that would leave him questioning his moral judgement. She did not appreciate what she had when she was alive, now that she was near the precipice of her demise, could she really conjure up anything substantiated to humanity?

Fingers moved but it required some internal insistence, from the side of him that was still untarnished but buried for convenience sake. Gretchen raised her eyes, weariness gathering on her lids, tracing patterns down the hairline fractures of her face.

"What do you want me to do with that?" She asked blandly, seemingly unaffected as she studied him under a fall of damp eyelashes,

His smouldering, impenetrable gaze jerked slightly with a hint of recrimination, "Write to your daughter-write her a letter explaining things and I'll make sure she gets it!" Gretchen faked a cough, the bubble of crass, mocking laughter straining against the siege of her tongue.

The look that draped her aquiline features was saddened blasé and when she spoke, words were quietly delivered but harshly tart, "Emily has a mother, Michael! Telling her the truth about me is not going to do anyone any good." Pursing her lips for a split second before ploughing forward, "Neither is it going to change anything. The last time I was involved-" Lowered her eyes to the floor on the pretext of interest, letting the words die on her lips, completely missing his rapier-edged look of admonishment. "I know, Gretchen!" He said stiffly, an acrid colour to his speech, "The company, Right!" The predictability of next sentences gave her a jolt, urging her on another inappropriate laughing spree but it is restrained at the last minute. Everything he says is true, having heard it from a more reliable and judgemental source, who knew firsthand the duplicity of Gretchen Morgan's mind. "It is true Michael! I am incapable of being her mother, which is why I gave full custody to my sister." Her manner was curt and cutting, as if she didn't want further enquiry in the mess she had created for herself. Her blood stirred with morbid disquiet, she was starting to feel like a social-workers case, precisely the reason she had avoided the issue with motherhood.

The calluses of his fingers crushed the paper in his hand, aggravation quivering. "Don't you think she would want to know why?" The steely blade of his voice stabbing her with revelations that she had made peace with. She had had the time to spare. Gretchen faced him squarely, "No! She will be better off not knowing about me!" Eyes flashing as violently as a distant storm swirling along the flanks of the sky, she bites down on the thunder, swallows it whole so not a tangle of the acrimony that habituates her is breathed into the staleness between them. Michael had to agree and forfeit the topic; time was a lax commodity that couldn't undue the damage that she had incurred. "She is going to find out eventually and will have a lot of questions that will need to be answered. You can't hide from the truth!" The sagely demeanour was beginning to chap her skin till the rough texture of her bones, her mouth pinches shut around some insubordinate thought.

"It has this tendency to catch up with you!" With great deliberation giving the prison cell a once over, "But in your case it was sooner rather than later!" The skeletal of a smug grin slid across his lips, shimmering in his cobalt eyes. Gretchen sniggered in spite of herself as hollow, as it ever was, "I cannot do it. I want her to remember me fondly, with love and respect. It is only possible as her Aunt. It will have to suffice." Admitted with disarming candour but what really shook Michael was the meaningful, significant look telegraphed to him. It was all startling. Then she added with the faint suggestions of a sneer, "My relationship with my daughter is different; projecting your own mommy issues on me will honestly not work out for either of us." The matter-of –fact dribble from her tongue annoys him and he is visited by the recommendation to bruise her, somewhere she can see everyday.

"So you know about that." Acid leaking into his tone, stepping backwards so his ivory skin was mottled with shadows. Invariably, she saw the repressed part of him, like in a funhouse mirror. The person staring at you is there but the mirror image is more interesting because it transforms before your eyes, a caricature of familiarity but distorted by uneven shards of glass or another perception that derived from the whole, but provokes mistrust and dislike.

Gretchen never liked the funhouse mirror with empty spaces and mind tricks that attracted the childish imagination of dreams and fairytales. It was a lie and like when her family entered the place of trickery, abstractly, you feel it burrowing under your skin, infecting your presence of mind. Gretchen's family regularly visited the funhouse; her sister liked it, too young to know better. Gretchen was wary of the twisted reality the house promised. Things changed when they entered into the lights and colours. People changed and she saw it in the tell-tale gleam of euphoria in her father's eyes.

"It was not exactly the best kept secret in the company. Aside from that, it was a good Sidney Sheldon kind of story, dramatic novel." "I prefer Jeffery Archer!" Interrupting her coolly, then once again slinking out of the poor light. Her eyes twinkled knowingly, "I expected as much!" The corners of her lips rising ever so slightly, " So whatever 'problems'" Calculated pressure on that word to let him discern that she was understating the statement, "I suggest you sort them out and leave my daughter and me out of your Greek tragedy." Voice dripping with venom.

Michael gave her a harsh glare mingled with typical judgemental disapproval that pined her with reproach. "Medea murdered her two sons to get revenge for their father's betrayal. You see- he eloped with a princess and Medea couldn't stand it, so she killed his sons-her own children just to repay the father for his selfishness." "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Supposedly she began the first murder for love and then-for the lack of it." "I know!" He answered wryly, breath hissing out between clenched teeth.

"People do strange things for love. Like your girlfriend." Letting her eyes flick momentarily to the empty space before they returned to his emotive presence. "She had a future for herself before she threw it all away for you!" Voice became oily with phoney sentiment and unconvincing sympathy; her eyes goaded him with watery mirth, enthusiastic about hitting a nerve. Michael does not allow himself to breach his memories, evading the happy ones to the woman who looks remote and beaten, a glimmer of regret for being there with him. Draws his eyes into slits as they fastened on her. Gretchen Morgan is the epitome of treachery.

Started as a low growl then rose in a heated timbre of ferocious detestation, "You are despicable and maybe you are-" Pausing to suck in air, fixing her with a look of imperious contempt, "-correct in assuming that your daughter would be better off without you!" Gretchen was placidly neutral, held captive by the burning, haunted aura of his eyes that was reminiscent her of crackling ice.

He advanced forward slowly; the energy in his body belied the languidness of his movements. The paper and pen had escaped his tense fingers to be bestowed on the floor, the crash too light among the overwhelming largeness of the atmosphere. His foot smashed it in half but neither was aware of the loss, it was inconsequential.

"But-" Halting abruptly as if to consider his next line of thought.

It happened so fast that Gretchen doubted the occurrence two seconds later when a pain screamed down her back and her vision swam with the fury raging on Michael's face, shadows and hate, hate and shadows. All seemed to merge into one and compress her body.

Strong hands shackled her shoulder in an iron grip, flinging her into the wall with the force of his odium. The thick bands of muscles around his arms and neck corded menacingly as he hurled hoarse, impassioned words into her face, "What right do you have to deny a child the right to the truth-Who the hell do you think you are? Thinking everything will work out for the best without even trying to rectify what you have done. Eventually, she will discover her real mother and then what, if you're not around to tell her you were too much of a pernicious bitch to be there for her, she will blame it on herself." Biting down on the last words with feverish viciousness. "I was always there for her!" Gretchen retorted softly, skin singing under the heat of his scorching breath while her mind struggled to maintain the grave, implacable calm. "Apparently not enough!" Spitting out, her irises subject to concentrated poisonous malice, "I can only imagine the worst kind of mother who would let a monster like T-Bag get anywhere near her." That scalded her so badly, she was sure her skin was sizzling.

"Because of me she had the worst experience of her life." Gretchen's mild words were widely spaced with ruefulness and repentance, eyes studiously averted. "I cannot put her through anything else." Michael nodded, some of his anger abating to soften the hairline cracks on his face, eyes lustrous like cobalt stones and so close to her. Michael didn't expect to be able to recognize it, the depth of feeling in her eyes, vulnerability. "Do you really feel pain, Gretchen?" The whisper like a feather soft touch, a query maybe not meant for her ears.

"Kiss me!" '_And find out' _The thought completed itself in her mind riddled with turmoil, filled to the brim that she cannot think two steps ahead than what she needs so badly at the moment, a chance to prove herself.

The knot loosed on his knuckles and he was taken aback, astonishment and confusion drenched his face. "Gretchen!" Probably thinking it is some kind of trap. Nevertheless, shame washed her body, an incoherent flush of embarrassment crawling on her pallid surface at the transparent display of desperation, she pursued onwards driven purely by some obscure hope. "Kiss me like you do her! Micheal!" Feeling aghast at the raw, pathetic emotions that send feverish trembles across her flesh, her yes hooded with disgrace. She wished he wouldn't notice, the walls of the stoic and antipathetic Gretchen Morgan crumbling as if they were made of ash. How long did it take build them up-brick by brick-important as she grew in personal fortitude and solitude to each phase of her life. Another part of her badly desired of Michael to conquer his reluctance, his sickened qualms and take her into his arms. "If you can prove to me that I can feel then I might be able to give Emily a satisfactorily answer." Her eyes wide-rimmed and turbulent, resembling the waves crashing on the shore in dashes of blue hues.

Doubt clouded his eyes but there lingered something else, something that was taking into account the person that she could be, she wasn't able to decipher it in time. Fingers released their grip, instead began to trace patterns on the space they had handled so ruthlessly. Her eyelashes wavered to a close to wallow in the gentle touch, like butterfly strokes that comforted, a prelude to something more intimate. A throaty sigh shuddered from her mouth as gradually the fingers find their way to her lips. Parched and torn, they are hardly the perfect spot for such tender fondling. Instinctively, she plants a light kiss on each of his pads, uneasiness filtering into her veins that were clogged with sodden cinders and the dread that he will arrest his movement. The movement that are for the first time, lighting a fire that had been chocked out. It spread slowly from her chest to her lower extremities, a hunger was growing to posses what she had deemed trivial and unwanted for so long. Her eyes were closed so she couldn't see the watchful, vague stare that held her face to him.

Inwardly, Gretchen became more conscious of what was essential at this precious minute, when she was at her most susceptible and subject to the administrations of Michael Schofield, it dawned there was only one more thing to do. The question twirled in her mind and radiated unasked from her eyes, on the verge of her mouth. But he didn't let her begin, simply captured her lips in a memorable kiss, wetting away the residual chill. His mouth stimulated with the sensuous grace of a lover that Gretchen had never known or will ever, given her established fate, a wretched ache commenced but it was quickly repressed. She compelled the sensitivity of her focus on Michael and joined the embrace. Flames of fire slid on her tongue as her own fingers rubbed the curve of his jaw bone, trailing upwards and she imagined a scar underneath his ear, a lasting remnant of his fugitive years. If he had remained a pencil pusher then there would have been no marked blemishes on his fair skin.

The white-hot heat was inducing abnormal, uncontrollable thoughts into her and she wanted so much to share it with him. It scared her but she pressed on, apprehension had never stopped her before. The tip of her tongue nudged his teeth in enquiry; never had Gretchen Morgan had to ask it of any other man, they had all just wanted 'it'. Surprisingly, he accepted her out of his own violation given his familiarity with her nature and egoistically, Gretchen speculated whether a part of him was dying or had died. What could you say of man who would give himself to the likes of her? He hadn't completely given himself-yet, she steeled herself on quaking knees and unsteady feet.

It was all taking its toll on her, her world somersaulting to a land that was strange and unbecoming of the woman. The caress of his mouth is like a clutch to a fading, disappearing reality where she is wearing beautiful silken dresses and music is playing in the background, the elegant prose of the violin setting the mood. In contrast, she is not very alluring in prison garb, orange, dirty and stinky.

She found herself slipping, pulled by traction to the unforgiving floor which she had spent most of her life clawing out of. The kiss faltered, nearly separating. Sturdy arms encircled her waist, offering the support she needed, holding her in place just as surely as her emotions did. Shamelessly she received it wholeheartedly by wrapping her arms around his neck, deepening her taste of the forbidden fruit, he tasted fresh and new. Hot, wet, sweet, and painful embrace that made her pulse race and her loins throb with unrestrained want but not the usual kind of debauchery. Did he ever get tired of playing the noble, chivalrous knight? Surreptitiously she plundered his mouth, sipping from the reserves of his lady love. Did he see Sarah in his mind's eye as he kissed Gretchen? Honestly, the Valkyrie couldn't summon the willingness to care.

**Not over yet but this time I will only complete it after I get 20 reviews. Yeah, you heard me. My ego needs validation and if I do not get the specified reviews by the end of the week, kiss the story goodbye. No, please review I need it for luck so far it has been bad this past week.**


	3. ENDINGS ARE BRUTAL

**Finished! For all my loyal reviewers. Thank you for your support-this wouldn't have been possible. By the way any chance one of you would like to be my beta-reader. I am in dire need of one!**

The passion between their tongues grew fierier as they tasted each other, their need primal as well as human. She gave a muffled moan as he nipped at her bottom lip, sharply, rolling it between his teeth before dipping his tongue into her warm cavern. Gretchen's mouth quaked with the burning aftertaste, like embers of lava sliding down her throat. He didn't want to be invested in this..wrongful pursuit. She didn't deserve it. He tried to pull away. Her deprived hands latched him to her, wanting whatever 'friendly' comfort that the moment could offer, anything that wasn't greedy, merciless hands or callous touch of cold flesh. There lingered pity though it was unintentional. The righteous could do nothing but pity the damned.

It was moving thing in her mouth, every slid of his tongue and ever crush of his lips. The savour of it nudged at some sense of dignity that had long been shredded.

Gretchen trampled it. To survive in this prison, there had to be an abolishment of every little detail of the petite businesswoman. The soldier solely existed but just for a few stolen moments, she could be the other woman.

Wiling time until she caught the eye of a handsome man. He struts towards her, oozing charm and confidence, a flirtatious twinkle in his eyes because she commanded it. The warm flush of the wine reaching her cheeks and spreading through her body in anticipation.

If it wasn't for the fact she was preoccupied, laughter would have surely erupted from her mouth. Instead, it was tossed out as a too audible moan of pleasure. It did nothing to assuage his ministrations; his spine stiffens with rigid displeasure at the fleeting thought of giving her gratification.

Though their mouths were intimately latched, he tried to reduce the friction, the touching and the morbid feelings that were in no way sexual that flowed between the heat of their bodies. It threatened to rise from the back of his throat, guilt and hatred, like bile. Nerves were on edge, stinging with the implications of the union. She hadn't asked for this, he was only meant to search for her humanity.

Gretchen placed her hand over his chest, to feel the riotous rhythm of his heart. The confliction pumped steadily inside him, dragging him in different directions. It made her wonder what kept their present together. The pretext was humanity. It could just as easily be redemption. The hard stare of penetrating determination had stared over the barrel of a gun so many times. Never did the bullet effectively cleave his precious soul, people praised it as if it was woven out of gold.

Abruptly, Gretchen snatched her lips from his because they were becoming too familiar with the flavour. It was bittersweet in her mouth. The oily, acrid tang with a tinge of sweetness, pity.

His fingers dug into her sides, the pain registering mildly against the steady thrum of electricity through her body. Her fingers tightened their hold on his neck as she struggled to make the moment real, meaningful. Anything to smother the churning sickness in her stomach, self-loathing for accepting a kiss from an adversary.

It wasn't any different from conceding to a whipping from his girlfriend, baring her back to Sara's unforgivable anger. She had expected the pain. Searing like fire but ultimately necessary for a lull as unreliable as it may have been, in theory she planned to work it to her advantage. Plan. Sketch each step in her life; end a job with payment and stolen breath in her lungs. The fragility of survival hanging like the sword of Damocles, waiting for the wielding hand to strike a decisive blow.

His eyes have the fierce focus of a mountain lion with the ambiguity of grey clouds. Jaw clenched and face stern as his eyes latch onto hers, patiently biding time till the static that held them both in limbo to end. He is agitated, furious and impatient. But only with himself. He cannot push her into anything.

It knotted her, the desire and it was pathetic. It provoked her to resume the parody of a make out session. Michael's body experiences a spasm of obdurate frigidness as she plucks bee-like kisses on his salty skin, not his lips. Then, theirs is a duelling of tongues, teeth instead of lips tear at each other. The abrasiveness not diminishing in the slightest. And through it all she can still hear the miserable whimpers of impotent rancour.

He practically rips her hands from around her neck. Slams them against the cold cement, the noise and the grunt from the back of his throat sounding like a roar with the ferocity echoing in her ears. Body is flush against hers, she is grinding salaciously but he expresses frosty detachment and she is visited by the need to mock his disinterest with a debasing comment. Vainly, unconsciously, her movement stretches to regain some of the heat.

It is otherwise cold. The chill seeps under her skin, the tendrils choking in the spaces of her body. Tension ripples through him. Revulsion follows like an after shock. She feels it tingling in her finger tips and that when reality filters in as she awakens from the submerged dream. Icy blues cackle to life with renewed vigour. '_He has had enough of playing the martyr'_

She simply feels death sink further into her bones. Tilting her head, a blank look descends on her features that usually carried a rough-edge for the world to see. Nothing to convey in her direct gaze at the man emerging lively from the wreckage.

A ripple of muscles as he straightens his back and builds space between them. Hands fall to his side, clenching and unclenching. A piercing gaze edging toward a glare bores down on her. The planes of his face hardened to steel, lips pulled into a tight line. There was very little to belie the thoughts jumbling messily in his head but for her, he was readable. Questions radiated from his eyes, an objective. He seemed to ignore her scrutinizing look instead opted to let the overwrought silence settle between them like fragments of glass awaiting their loud shatter. Neither willing to be the first to utter a word.

"Nothing is ever as simple as that complex mind tries to make it out to be, Is it Michael?" Surrendering, finds her voice strained, thick in her mouth. There is a ripple across the stoic facile but emotions are not forthcoming, "Is it simple in your mind Gretchen? Does having no conscience make it easier?" He threw the question at her with surprising severity, brusque speed but she doesn't falter.

It is too much expectant of Michael to refer to her supposed conscience. A ghost of a smile is brandished on her face, steely but with an emptiness that unearths too much from her own soul. It doesn't extend to her eyes which are full of unspeakable things.

The silence washes over them as they mull it over their respective positions. Whether it is on the battlefield or in prison, they were who they are and nothing could alter their standing positions in the universe, much like chess pieces.

Overused, soiled, weathered chess pieces.

A crinkle appears on his forehead and when he speaks, there is gravity in his voice, "It is over for you. You're nothing." She searches for audible signs of malice or satisfaction but doesn't find any. There is only a small shadow of contempt. Shoulders shrug languidly when there are no words for a retort, at least she can't find them on her tongue. He walks toward the door, for brief seconds his face is turned away from her general direction. Not looking at her. There is nothing for him to see. Not a painting of a wretched woman. The barren mother. The remorseless damned soul for whom death was too good for.

Halting at the door, he eyes the depilated structure and swallowed the sour dryness in his mouth that words cannot fill. It nags him. The incessant, unyielding demand that drills into his conscious, warping priorities before his eyes.

He thinks he sees two little boys, standing over a woman's grave, eyes fixed to the slab of stone. Their bodies are saturated and hurting with mournful grief. For Michal, it has solidified as a physical entity that obstructs his throat, crushes his wind pipe and burns his eyes to the point where he ceases to expect tears. He waits for blood.

The boy grew up but the feelings never left him. Every time he does some good to make the world bearable, her voice returned clearer, full of song and praises that he can almost forgive himself for allowing his brother to fall on the wrong path. Tentatively, he licks his lips. They are arid and chapped. Moist with her but he would rather forget it ever happened. Mentally, he prepared himself. The last few minutes hadn't helped, or dented the frozen impression of her. Rime drenches her but human contact affects others like a scourge.

He turns his head. Gretchen sucked in a deep breath of cool damp air in preparation for added painful minutes with Doctor Phil. "She is going to wonder!" Eyes flaring to life a they cast her a sidelong glance, "She is going to have questions." Voice is hoarse, "If you even have a shred of decency to your own daughter-" "Then I should write her letter," Gretchen exploded, fury contorting her face to something vicious and spitting venom. "Anything that explains- gives a pathetic reason as to why I couldn't be her mother." The ending trails off from her seething diatribe, resonating silently with effete desperation. Tetchily, narrowed eyes locked onto his, breathing laboured as antagonism washes over her in palpable waves, and veins beat erratically against sallow skin.

He had turned his body to absorb the full potency of her glower that could have melted iron. A second struck a chord. Then another marked another one passing. He looked at her. She was slumped against the wall, nearly on her knees. Looking cold and forlorn, she matched the state of solitary confinement word for word. There was a hot brilliance in her eyes, a supernova ebbing into darkness to be swallowed by the universe. The sarcasm and demeaning fashion of her speech is a haunting melody, the old Gretchen is a weathered fragment of his past.

He doesn't feign resignation, doesn't let disappointment taint his face or permit words bearing some resemblance to comfort to cower between them. Turning on his heel, he exits. The noise is jarring. He never looked back, ahead was his future. If he had. He would have seen the traitorous emotions protracting unwanted in her body like a worm in an apple. It tramples her inhibition, breaking down the floodgates and letting it spill out into a sea of tears; heartbreak, pain, desolation and misery hammering at her from all sides of her prison.

**FINISHED! Loved it! Working on another, just need enough people to encourage me onwards. Ciao **


End file.
